March 8, 2008

February 29, 2008

Homeland Security Won’t Explain Why the Mexican Border Wall Bypasses the Rich and Connected
I’m not one to complain about people being rich; hell, I want to be rich myself. But it’s stupid shit like this that makes you wonder how both rich dems and reps can’t figure out why there’s the perception of class envy in this country. I just got done reading the book “Free Lunch” by David Cay Johnston, where he makes the rather convincing argument that a lot of folks who are rich (Uncle Fucker, for example, with his Texas Rangers scam) got that way not by hard work or a great invention or wise investing, but by manipulating the rules of government to work exclusively in their favor at the expense of the taxpayer, something that Adam Smith warned us about when he wrote about the dangers of businessmen making laws. I, of course don’t believe that there should be any regulation of business of any sort. But by that same token, neither do I believe that government has any business manipulating the rules in anyone’s favor, rich or poor. Anyone who says we have a free market is a damn fool. What we have is mercantilism. We’ve become the new British Empire, going to war to expand business, instead of for defense. I’d say I can’t wait for November, but it’s probably just going to be more of the same shit coming out of a different asshole. Anymore voting is nothing more than a choice of whether you’d rather be fist-fucked with the Left hand or fist-fucked with the Right hand.

February 17, 2008

Barbie, G.I. Joe or a not-to-be named NPR show could easily think the wiretapping debate that gripped Congress this week is complicated. Goodness knows quite a few journalists and pundits have butchered it.

Turns out after numerous complaints (and what this blogger likes to think is the paper’s fear of being blogged about) the paper suddenly decided they were wrong to paint the EPR and it’s owner in such a crappy light. They basically passed the buck to “New York” for the lame ass reporting and blamed the episodes of mass comment deletion on their content management system.

Because of the way our content management system works, when we edit an article that has already been published and commented on, the comments on that article are deleted.

Suddenly we look like censors.

Now I don’t know about their “Content management system”; for all I know they’re telling the truth. Alright, fine. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. But if that’s the case, they’d have known about this problem before and would either work to fix their editing software, or they’d have replaced it altogether. Why keep a system around that gives people the idea that you are censoring them, knowing that it will damage your reputation for journalistic integrity? That makes no damn sense.

UPDATE: About an hour after my last comment, a Megan Taylor posted the following comment:

” Hi, Alligator readers.

You’ll notice that on occasion, comments disappear from the Web site.

This is not intentional. I want you to be able to have a discussion about all the stories. I want you to be able to voice your opinions, whatever they may be.

The problem is this:

When we make corrections, we go back to the online articles and write in an Editor’s Note so that anyone who stumbles upon the article in the future has the correct information. The system we use to manage our content erases all comments whenever we edit an article.

It’s unfortunate, but right now there isn’t anything we can do about this. “

Now, one of the obvious problems with this article is that it’s blatantly biased. Another is that it’s factually incorrect. And a third is that though you don’t see it now, the article originally appeared with a photo of the rifle in question. A photo which neither the editor of the paper nor the reporter bothered to get permission to post. It has since been removed, but only after the rifle’s owner spoke up about it.

February 9, 2008

that Attorney General Michael Mukasey told a congressional panel Thursday that CIA interrogators who waterboarded detainees would not be subject to prosecution because they were acting on legal guidance from the Justice Department.

You might have thought that US border controls were simply focused on keeping out the likes of Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse, who might well reduce the entire country to rubble (OK, they recanted).

But some companies now have a different issue. According to The Washington Post, Radius has now “tightened its data policies so that traveling employees must access company information remotely via an encrypted channel, and their laptops must contain no company information.”